Monthly Archives: June 2015

Petunia gave birth to nine piglets yesterday. Today, she suffers from mastitis. My neighbors ran around my yard looking for a fat Cane Toad to alleviate Petunia’s pain, so she could feed her litter. A Cane Toad?
“What will you do with the Cane Toad?” I asked.

I know they can be deadly to dogs and cats because if animals eat a Cane Toad, they can die from the milky white poison released from the glands of the toad. The Most-Traveled Cane Toad What is really frightening in this article is that “people can die within 15 minutes of getting poisoned by a Cane Toad.”

“It is astonishing how much worse one mosquito can be than a swarm. A swarm can be prepared against, but one mosquito takes on a personality—a hatefulness, a sinister quality of the struggle to the death.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

Marina tenderly wrapped her feverish two-year old grandson in a sheet and Gloria rushed him to the hospital on her motorcycle. Braydon, unable to walk, suffering from a high fever and severe joint pain is one of the youngest victims of the mosquito transmitted virus, Chikungunya.

“Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” –Joe Biden

One of our biggest challenges in planning for retirement abroad was creating a realistic budget before we jumped into a new life. After our ‘pretirement’ experiment in Nicaragua in 2004-05, we set a goal to become financially independent. Many articles have been written about adjusting and assimilating into a different culture, but few articles stress the importance of financial planning before making the big jump.

Returning to San Jorge from Granada last week, I had an interesting conversation with my taxi driver. We were stopped by the traffic police in order to check the taxi driver’s legal documents.

“Are you worried when the police stop you?” I asked.

“Not at all,” he responded. “Everything is legal and correct.”

A friend, visiting Nicaragua for the first time, arrived in Rivas on a chicken bus. She needed a taxi to San Jorge to catch the ferry…about a five-minute ride. She told me that she paid $20 for the taxi ride from Rivas to San Jorge. I was furious because a colectivo ( a taxi that takes numerous people around the Rivas area ) charges 20 cords per person. An expreso ( a taxi that takes only one person to San Jorge from Rivas) charges 100 cords.

My former fifth grade student is visiting Nicaragua for the first time. On her 19th birthday, we took her to Charco Verde to see the monkeys. Returning home in the taxi, we had a flat tire. I couldn’t help but laugh at the taxi driver’s t-shirt. The Start of Something BigHis t-shirt says it all about living in Nicaragua.

It has been a long two weeks. I am without Internet and it has taken me several days to figure out where the problem is located. A technician came to check the tower, but he couldn’t find a problem. However he did not understand the configuration or know to how to check for other problems.

In Nicaragua, service is inefficient, disorganized, and slow. We have learned that if you need to fix something, you must learn to repair it yourself. I played detective for several days, unplugging cables and moving my router…to no avail.

The owner of GGnet refuses to answer my texts or telephone calls. His technician, who came to look at the tower said he would return later that day, and we haven’t seen him since. I discovered long ago that mañana means today, tomorrow, next week, or months from today…sometimes it means never.

If they don’t have a solution for a problem, they will tell you what you want to hear, just to save face. Can you tell I am frustrated? I think I found the problem. The network adapter box is fried. So, I am going to Rivas to buy another network adapter box.

I have learned not to rely on anyone else to fix my internet problems. So, my wonderful readers, please be patient with me. I am at an Internet cafe learning how to use my new iPad, and I am not sure how this post will look. It took me forever to remember my administrative password.

I hope to have my internet fixed soon. Self sufficiency is the key to a good life in Nicaragua. Stay tuned for more stories and photos…as soon as I figure out how to transfer my photos from my computer to my iPad. 🙀